Yes, you can get drunk eating food made with alcohol

If you've ever been told that cooking "burns off" any alcohol in
the food you're eating, be forewarned: That's entirely untrue.

Sure, you're not likely to get wasted nibbling on a small slice
of tiramisu, but it's time to toss out that old story that you
can eat foods with alcohol and ignore any of their effects
on your blood alcohol levels.

As it turns out, many popular foods cooked with wine or liquor
still contain alcohol.

But how much, you ask?

New Scientist deputy editor Graham Lawton decided to experiment
on himself
to find out. In a video, he eats several dishes, all of which
have been sautéed, flambéed, or baked with booze. After each
plate, he uses a hand-held breathalyzer to measure his blood
alcohol content.

Check out his results:

Course no. 1: Chorizo flambéed with rum

Before he starts eating, Lawton breathalyzes himself. He's
already at a 0.2 (0.02 in US measurements)
thanks to having sampled some of the dessert he'd made earlier —
a trifle with a touch of sherry.

Then, he dips into the appetizer he made, a rum-flambeed chorizo.
It looks pretty tasty:

When he finishes the sausage, he tests his blood alcohol levels
again by blowing into the breathalyzer. Here's his result:

YouTube/New Scientist

Clearly, his blood alcohol level has gone up. Since it's too high
for his BAC meter to calculate accurately, the device simply
reads "HI." (We're not sure what kind of meter he was using or
how accurate it was, but his readings jibe with a
US Department of Agriculture report on alcohol retention
levels using various cooking methods.)

"Believe it or not," says Lawton, "I'm already over the
drink-drive limit, simply by eating that flambéed chorizo."

While that might seem extreme, we're assuming that Lawton also
has an empty stomach when he starts the experiment, meaning that
his gut was able to absorb the maximum amount of alcohol from
whatever he consumed. That would explain why his BAC went up so
fast. Plus, adding alcohol to a boiling liquid and removing it
from heat, a process frequently used in making reductions for
meat dishes, leaves close to 85% of the alcohol added to the dish
intact, according to the USDA report.

Course no. 2: Fish stew cooked with white wine

Lawton explains that his next course, a Portuguese fish stew,
used 180 milliliters of white wine. The dish was then covered and
cooked for 30 minutes.

Again, he finishes the meal and takes a pause to test his blood
alcohol levels.

To his surprise, his BAC has actually decreased, measuring in at
a 1.3 (0.13 in US measurements). That's because
now that he has food in his stomach, he's has begun absorbing the
alcohol at a slower rate. Still, this level is still
far too high to legally drive.

Of all the cooking methods you could use, baking or simmering (as
was likely done with this fish stew) removes the most alcohol
overall, according to the USDA report. But 30 minutes of baking
still leaves you with a little over a third of any alcohol you
added to the mixture.

At this point, Lawton has food in his stomach, but not nearly
enough to keep up with all the alcohol he's eating. Despite the
obvious effects that his three-course-meal has on Lawton, it's
important to remember that everyone processes alcohol
differently. Everything from how much you weigh to how much
you've eaten that day can affect how your body breaks down booze.

Looking for a cooking method that removes the most alcohol
possible? Cooking or simmering a dish for 2 and 1/2 hours or
more, the USDA report found, removes the majority (but still
leaves a small amount). Keep in mind, too, that you can always
substitute
other liquids for alcohol if needed. Ginger ale works great
instead of white wine, for example; tomato juice can be swapped
for red wine.